Joy Division: The Oral History remembers everything…
“You are hearing the voices of the people who are the subject of the book.” JON SAVAGE
THE FORTIETH anniversary of Joy Division’s debut album Unknown Pleasures, 2019 will involve one book admirers will have to read. Out in April, JD authority Jon Savage’s The Searing Light, The Sun And Everything Else: Joy Division: The Oral History brings deep commentary from participants Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Tony Wilson, Peter Saville, Annik Honoré and more, plus contemporary testimony from late singer Ian Curtis. “It gives immediacy and directness,” says Savage of the format. “You’re hearing the voices of the people who are the subject of the book. I was inspired by Jean Stein’s Edie, the break out Oral History. Also Andrew Loog Oldham’s Stoned and Stoned 2.” Detail includes Ian Curtis’s fascination with the Berlin Wall and how the title of Love Will Tear Us Apart was inspired by The Captain & Tenille’s 1975 hit Love Will Keep Us Together. Savage says he learned, “just how close they were, and intuitive in the way they made music. Also going through the story week by week, I understood more why things turned out the way they did.” Another Joy Division (and New Order)related book arrives in May. Drummer Stephen Morris’s Record Play Pause promises to blend autobiography and how “music actually works.” He spoke to MOJO about the book in 2011. “The Dr. Feelgood doc Oil City Confidential has a fucking great line in it,” he said. “‘Being successful does terrible things to your personality.’” There is further archival JD/NO action on March 2, when bassist Hook sells his hoard of instruments, original tapes and memorabilia through omegaauctions.co.uk. Lots include Ian Curtis’s signed and dated 1977 typewritten lyrics for Failures Of A Modern Man (later known as Failures). “These objects are very, very important,” says Hooky. “But it is time for me to let them go.” Donations from the proceeds will be made to mental health charity CALM and The Epilepsy Society, in memory of Ian Curtis.